Animal feeding devices have been in widespread use in the prior art heretofore and patents of which applicant is aware include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,455,848, Young; U.S. Pat. No. 3,216,397, Pickard; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,452,717, Sunner; U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,535, Salvia.
It is not infrequent that an animal in the nursing stage must be hand fed for many reasons such as the loss or unavailability of the mother or even an unwillingness on the part of the nursing animal to nurse from its own mother in a normal manner. Furthermore, many calves will not drink milk from a bucket until they are weaned.
Where the raising of animals is carried out on a relatively large scale such as is common in the raising of cattle, a dairy operation or the like there is consequently a large number of calves in the nursing stage which must be fed by means other than in the natural manner. The usual approach in feeding such calves is by hand with the use of a conventional nursing bottle having a nipple filled with a suitable liquid nutrient such as milk. Obviously, where there are many such nursing calves to be fed, a great burden is imposed on the cattle rancher or dairy farmer from both the standpoint of time and personnel involved.